Luca watches me for a moment before nodding once, pulling out his phone. He knows better than to ask why.
Because if the cops find her before I do, if anyone else puts their hands on her before I get to her—I will burn this city to the fucking ground.
The estate is a flurry of movement now. My orders ripple through the ranks like gunfire, men scrambling, voices crackling through radios, engines roaring to life in the courtyard. I should feel better. I should feel like I have control again.
But I don’t.
Because no matter how much power I wield, no matter how many men I send after her—Sofia knows me. She knows my methods, my resources, my reach. And that means she knows exactly how to stay ahead of me.
I drag a hand down my face, inhaling deeply. The rage is still there, a slow, simmering burn beneath my skin. But it’s the fear that’s worse. The fear that’s been gnawing at me from the second I woke up to an empty bed.
Sofia ran—abandoned me. And she never would have done that unless she truly believed she had no other choice.Why?
A sharp knock on the door cuts through my thoughts. One of my men, Rico, steps in, his face pale, his expression unreadable.
"Boss," he says, voice tight. "We found something."
I straighten instantly. "What?"
The man swallows and holds out some papers to me. I frown, snatching them from his hand, my breath hitching as I take a closer look. It takes a second for my brain to catch up, to process what I’m seeing?—
A pregnancy test, done by a clinic.
The result: pregnant.
Everything inside me goes still. A strange, cold silence fills my chest, stretching through my limbs, pressing against my skull.
My mouth is so dry I can’t swallow. My vision tunnels, shrinking down to the documents in my hand, the answer to a question I never thought to ask.
She’d been sick—but shetoldme that was a case of food poisoning. I should have known better.Damn it, Sofia.
25
MARCO
Istare at the test in my hand, my pulse hammering. My fingers tighten around the sheet of paper, my grip so fierce it’s a miracle I don’t tear it.
Pregnant.
A confirmation of the one thing that makes her running not just a betrayal, but a fucking catastrophe.
Sofia is pregnant.
A violent rush of emotion crashes into me, something raw and unfamiliar. It lodges deep in my chest, clawing at my ribs, filling every hollow space inside me with a brutal, uncontrollable need. To find her. To bring her back. To make sure she understands exactly what she’s done.
My breath comes hard and fast, every inhale sharper than the last.
Sofia is carrying my child.
I should’ve known. Should’vefeltit.
The signs were there—the exhaustion, the way she kept pushing her food around her plate, her sudden distance. I thought she was pulling away fromme, but she was protecting something far bigger.
I thought I had time.
Idon’t.
The realization crashes into me, threatening to rip me in half.